Update: Group Promised to Change Calls in FebruarySince we last posted this morning, there are number of other things to update you on those calls by Women’s Voices Women Vote.
First off, North Carolina officials were not the first to specifically object to the group’s failure to identify themselves and instead use “Lamont Williams” on the calls. As Facing South points out, back in February, after Virginia police investigated the calls and mailings as a possible identity theft scam, the group’s spokeswoman told The Virginian-Pilot that “not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was ‘absolutely an accidental omission.’” She also said that the group would be changing the calls so that the group was identified as the source.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. When I asked the group about that, a spokesperson told me that the failure to change the script was a “mistake” and added “we’re doing our best to figure out how the old script got used.”
Meanwhile, a group spokeswoman Sarah Johnson explained in a Q&A at DailyKos that the name Lamont Williams was used because that was the name of the actor reading the script. The calls using Williams’ voice went to men — because she said while the group mainly concentrates on unmarried women, they also target “African Americans, Hispanics and young people” — and a call using a woman’s voice went to women.
And finally, anti-robo call activist Shaun Dakin provides some context for the North Carolina attorney general’s accusation that the group’s calls were illegal because the group was not identified and did not provide a call back number. Dakin, who heads up Stop Political Calls, a group devoted to combating automated calls by establishing a National Political Do Not Contact Registry, writes that Women’s Voices Women Vote is breaking the law, but pretty much everybody else does too:
The reality is that there are more than likely several campaigns and other non-profit organizations that are “failing to disclose who sponsored the call” and “failing to offer the org’s contact information to get the calls to stop”.In fact, I know of no political campaign at the national level that offers voters a way to opt out of further calls.